Westport is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States, along the Long Island Sound within Connecticut’s Gold Coast. It is 52 miles northeast of New York City. The town is part of the Western Connecticut Planning Region. Westport’s public school system is ranked as the top public school district in Connecticut and 17th best school district in the United States. The earliest known inhabitants of the Westport area as identified through archaeological finds date back 7,500 years. Records from the first white settlers report the Pequot Indians living in the area which they called Machamux translated by the colonialists as beautiful land. Settlement by colonialists dates back to the five Bankside Farmers; whose families grew and prospered into a community that continued expanding. The settlers arrived in 1693, having followed cattle to the isolated area. The community had its own ecclesiastical society, supported by independent civil and religious elements, enabling it to be independent from the Town of Fairfield. As the settlement expanded its name changed: it was briefly known as “Bankside” in 1693, officially named Green’s Farm in 1732 in honor of Bankside Farmer John Green and in 1835 incorporated as the Town of Westport.